National Assembly for Wales

Local authorities are subject to accountability through the electorate, and the Welsh Government continues to encourage local government to conduct its business in an open and transparent manner. Our recent consultations on local government reform proposed a range of ways to further increase transparency.

Anti-social behaviour has a damaging effect on our communities. We are committed to addressing the issue through our funding of an additional 500 community support officers and implementing the recommendations of the Working Together for Safer Communities review.

Local authorities are democratically accountable for their performance. Welsh Government supports self-assessment and peer review and transparency about performance to enable public bodies to drive improvement and offer citizens a clear picture of performance. Audit, inspection and regulatory bodies have a key role in monitoring the quality of public services. 

In April, I set out in my written statement the range of future support from the Welsh Government for the armed forces community. 

The task and finish group, which has broad stakeholder membership, has met twice. It has prioritised a number of issues that will complement the work of the Law Commission in this area. Working groups have been established to explore issues in detail. I expect to receive their recommendations next summer.

The Government’s overall budget priorities, including the funding for local authorities, were set out yesterday. Whilst there is no ring-fencing of any specific part of the settlement, we and local government have prioritised funding for essential public services such as education and social care.

I welcome the IWA’s recent work on the ambition for energy transition in the Swansea bay city region. This new report on the economic benefit energy investment could unlock provides useful evidence. It shows how investing in a decarbonised, efficient energy system is central to increasing economic prosperity in Wales.

The Welsh Government’s woodland estate, which NRW manages, is an important public asset, managed for the public good. In July this year, Welsh Government and NRW published a statement on its purpose and role, setting out our priorities for the estate and describing how NRW is delivering them.

The consultation on petroleum extraction set out a policy to not permit any new petroleum licensing in Wales or support fracking. More than 1,800 responses have been received. These responses will inform the development of our future petroleum extraction policy, which I will confirm by the end of the year.

We are fully committed to supporting the long-term viability and profitability of the dairy sector. Our support includes benchmarking, capital grants, international trade development visits, innovation centre support, technical support, business clusters and market development.